On the last night of South By Southwest a mini riot broke out at the not-so-secret Death From Above 1979 reunion show. It was the last thing I shot at SXSW and it seemed like something Vice would want.  Before I went to Austin they told me they wanted SXSW coverage but they didn’t want bands or music stuff. They wanted weirder more interesting non traditional stuff and this seemed right up their alley. They ran a bunch of my photos and a story about the whole thing last week.  I am just going to reprint the whole thing here so I have an archive of it on my site plus there are some images I loved that Vice didn’t run that I will.  Check out the original article here on Vice or just keep reading…

During the last time slot of the last night of South By Southwest, Death From Above 1979 reunited for the first time in several years. They were playing the Undocumented Management showcase at Beauty Bar in Austin. I knew I couldn’t make it there in time for their 1am set, but the owners of Beauty Bar NYC were in town and I knew they could sneak me in the show, even if just for the last few songs. I texted Jessie Keeler from DFA about trying to make it and his foreboding response was simply “Gonna be a shitshow.” He was not wrong.

By the time I made it down to Beauty Bar, DFA was well into their set. I was coming down an alley that leads to the back stage at Beauty Bar and I could hear them playing. When I got closer, I saw hundreds of people just standing outside pressed up to the gate trying to watch the show. These kids were clapping and dancing and moshing and having a party in the alley behind the club. As I tried to push my way towards the gate, someone suddenly tried to climb the fence. There were security guards waiting for him so he didn’t get very far, but as he climbed a few other people attempted the same move and the fence came down. Several off duty cops were standing on the other side of the fence armed with TASERs and pepper spray. I was about 10 feet away at this point and I could hear the sound of TASERs zapping the shit out of people. I got closer despite the SXSW staff trying to keep me away.

I pulled out my camera and started shooting. So did 100 other people armed with camera phones and video cameras. Unfortunately, I had been shooting for more than 12 hours and my flash batteries were almost completely kicked. I fired off a few underexposed shots of people getting hit in the face with pepper spray and sparked by the stun gun type TASERs the off-duties were using liberally. I saw at least one zapper get shot randomly into the crowd, but the sound was a more effective deterrent than anything else. Meanwhile the band just kept playing.

Eventually the fence was put back up and held in place by Beauty Bar staff and security guards. The kids outside were even more riled up by this point and just started moshing in the alley. After a few minutes two uniformed cops finally showed up, a bit taken aback at the shit show they had just walked in to. As the police moved through the crowd people cursed and threw shit at them. The two officers warned us that crowd control horses were not far behind.

When the riot cops on horseback came through the alley, the DFA fans just moved out of the way. People started throwing empty beer cans at the horses, which caused them to start spinning around and freaking out. I can’t imagine the Austin Mounties get a lot of practice. As the horses passed, everyone in the alley just went back to the fence and started dancing.

By this point I had given up on my flash and started shooting portraits of the crowd, the horses, and the police with natural light. The cops finally got DFA to stop playing long enough to tell everyone that the band couldn’t finish their set until the alley party dispersed. Then the cops sort of huddled in front of the gate for a while as the crowd stood their ground waiting to see what would happen. Then, out of nowhere, the cops left, the show started back up, and the crowd started dancing like the police were never there.

When they finished playing everyone left peacefully and without any problems. The only trace of the mini-riot/party was a few beer cans and the thousands of camera phone pictures and videos that were already on YouTube by the time I got back to my hotel.

Click here to see all the photos from The Death From Above 1979 riot at Beauty Bar Austin.

Last night the Village Voice threw their second party of SXSW. This time during music week and at the Austin Music Hall and they partnered with Frank 151 to do it. The Interactive party was fun but low key.  The music party fucking blew shit up. It might have been the best party I have been to in 8 years of coming to SXSW. I got there a bit late but in time to check out Brooklyn natives Trouble Andrew and Rocky Business.  Rocky Business played a set that is sure to blow those kids up.  They were just insanely good and the crowd lost it.  After them one of the most stunning girls I have ever seen named Mars Lovejoy did her thing and made half of Austin fall in love (well, at least me).  Texas native Trea The Truth brought a dozen guys on stage with him and fucked shit up for the nearly local crowd.  After that shit got really serious with performances by Yellawolf, Fishbone and the fucking Wu-Tang Clan. The night ended with a DJ set from Erykah Badu.

I managed to get back stage even though I didn’t have any legit credentials for that. I just kept showing people my Village Voice press pass and pointing to our banner and hoping they would let me in. It seemed to work. I shot from the stage and back stage and had an insane amount of fun.  I ran into Comunnity star Donald Glover who I had met the day before backstage. He and his co-star Danny Pudi spent about 15 minutes looking at my photos on my iPad until one of Wu-Tang’s entourage brought us over to Wu-Tang’s dressing room.  Bam Margera was also back there and at some point I got stuck in some room with Erykah Badu and her entourage. It was all pretty surreal.

I don’t have time to upload pictures and all that shit today and when I do upload pictures I am going to do a much more indepth write up of every thing. I shot 1100 photos at the party so I will be breaking it all down into a number of posts. But today I am going to leave you with just a link to the Village Voice slideshow that only features a small percentage of the pictures I shot.

Click here for the Village Voice slideshow.

Click here for the Village Voice blog post.

And click here to see the Miami New Times write up featuring my shots.

Even though I don’t drink and have never actually had a Four Loko before, the beverage has gained a spot in my heart and I am going to miss it.  I will never miss it as much as Radical Outing‘s Anton Glamb who has pretty much dedicated his life to the Loko. He has recorded and entire album of Four Loko song including the classic R&B hit “Girl I Wanna Buy You A Can Of Four Loko”.  I heard him working on this stuff a while ago but I had no idea he had so many songs.  He has also accompanied the album with some offensive September 11th themed artwork and a note which could be the beginning of a Four Loko manifesto about how the government taking away the Loko is an affront to civil liberties.

In light of the recent Four Loko bans, this is Radical Outing’s response, 8 tracks of songs influenced by Four Loko produced under the influence of Four Loko. The EP features contributions from Anton Glamb, Chad Dubz, Santhya, Pink Cash and Johnny on the Rocks of Rocky Business. All tracks are original with the exception of Beautiful Problems, a rap/remix of an original song by Jade<3. We at Radical Outing drank a lot of Four Loko and feel that these recent bans are an attack on our freedom and way of life. We feel that it is our civic duty to respond stand up for our basic American right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

All I know is that this album is pretty fucking hilarious and I almost wish I drank so I could “Drink Four Loko’s In The Rain”.  Seriously. That shit is amazing and poetic. You need to listen to this shit right away. It will change your life.

Click here to listen to Anton Glamb & Radical Outing’s Never Forget – An Attack On Our Freedom & Way Of Life.

A while ago I blogged about the soft launch of Unseen NYC. I reached out to friends and fans of this site to submit street art and street life pictures to Unseen and you did not disappoint.  Well, after a few weeks of gathering content Unseen NYC officially launches today!

So let me refresh your memory…

A few years ago an old college buddy of mine, Rick Ramos, launched a website called Unseen Denver. It was basically a Denver based street art site but Rick sees street art a bit differently than a lot of people. Rick isn’t really interested in graffiti and he is not active in the street art culture but he loves the little things that people don’t notice that make Denver a more interesting place to live. He posts a photo a day that people from around Denver submit of street art and graffiti, but also things like notes and signs and snow drifts and cracks in the sidewalk and moments that make Denver home for those people.

I had seen Unseen Denver before a while ago but it wasn’t until recently that I took a good look at the site and realized how interesting it is. I asked him if he had ever thought about branching out and making Unseen sites in other cities. He told me he would love to but never had a person to really push the site in other cities.  Enter me.

I have been reaching out to you guys and my friends and fellow photographers to get them to submit images to this Unseen NYC project and it has already been pretty fantastic. The blog was just a few photos on a blank page but we still received a TON of photos and have already been blogged about on the NY Times and Sundance Channel blogs. It’s pretty clear that if Unseen Denver could have so much success that the New York version is going to me 10x more amazing. We have way more people, way more art and way more streets and cracks for art to hide in. Unseen NYC has no choice but to be huge!

So last week Rick redid the layout so Unseen looks like a real website now. We added a few posts about street art happenings in the city and we stared adding a bunch more content and as of today Unseen NYC is officially ready to roll!

So this is it. This is your re-invitation to check out the site. We really want you to submit photos! You can also follow Unseen NYC on Twitter or join us on Facebook or you could even become a blogger for the site!  We really want to find more people interested in writing about this stuff so hit me up if you are interested in joining the team!

And please… do us all a favor and visit Unseen NYC!

Once in a while I like to dump some links and scans and stuff on you guys to let you know what I have been doing outside of this website.  I always post this stuff on my Twitter and my Tumblr and such but here is a round up of some published work and recent press.  It’s not really that exiting but everyone is going on vacation tomorrow and I haven’t shot anything too exciting in the last few days so I guess now is as good time as any to do this post. Oh and yeah, I am going to DC to visit the family for Thanksgiving so if shit is slow over the next couple of days cut a guy some slack. Damn!

Here is a link to The L Magazine’s write up of me and some pictures of mine in their Best Of NYC Nightlife Photographers.

So here are just a bunch of things I have shot in the last few weeks for the Village Voice:

• Tiny Furniture Premiere After Party
• Exxxotica Convention (NSFW)
• This Is Music
• National Book Awards

Here are a few Dos & Don’ts that I have shot for Vice Magazine:

• Don’t
• Do
• Don’t
• Do
• Don’t (NSFW)
• Do
• Don’t (NSFW)
• Do
• Don’t (NSFW)

The NY Daily News wrote up this Harry Potter street art stunt at the Union Square Subway stop. My DBB sticker just happened to be in the shot. Both The Village Voice and Gothamist wrote it up as well so here are some serious viral points for my sticker.

And lastly I shot a bunch of photos for Ryan Keely’s Porn Star Sex Life workshop a while ago. Evidently they ended up in Penthouse Magazine which is always pretty funny. I think I was voted most likely to be working for Penthouse in high school so it’s always good to end up in there… even if it’s not a real shoot or anything.  Oh, and if you want to see all the pics from the Porn Star Sex Life workshop the are right here.

And if I don’t see you guys tomorrow… have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

Despite his loyalty to the New England Patriots my friend Rick is a good dude. I met him living in Richmond, VA and even though he left way before I did he is one of the few RVA kids I still keep in touch with.  He moved to Denver, CO where he started working for a domain hosting company.  I have nearly 40 domains still registered with them even though he doesn’t work there anymore and they jacked up the prices on me. Since he left Domain Site he has been doing a lot of SEO stuff and freelance work and he is helping me with another site I run.  He is the person who got me to actually use Twitter. (Follow him! – Follow me!) He does a lot of web work, but his best project has to be Unseen Denver.

Unseen Denver is a street art website but it has a more poetic feel to it.  It’s about finding things that most people are too busy to notice. It’s not just about big graffiti murals and throw ups. It’s not about just names written on walls.  It’s about accidental art, people just writing their thoughts on walls, it’s signs and notes and things just found on the street hidden unless you are looking for them.  Yes there are tags and yes there are throw ups on there, but it’s not the focus.  And the best part is that it is all user generated. People just send in image of the art they find while walking around the city.

I have been documenting similar stuff myself for years. I even had a few of those pics show up on the Converse blog a while back. When I saw what he had done with Unseen Denver I approached him about bringing the site to NYC.  He told me he had been thinking about it but never had anyone in place to help him promote it and find photographers.  Well, he just found someone.

Say hello to Unseen NYC.

I sent Rick about 100 of my NYC street art pictures and Rick set up a really, really simple blog. He is going to post one picture of mine a day until we get other people involved. I posted about it on Facebook the other day and got a bunch of response so I think this project might take off.  Once people start submitting photos Rick is going to do a serious design for the site and we are going to start writing featured posts and making the site more like Unseen Denver.

So the point of all this is… WE NEED YOUR HELP! If you are walking around in NYC and you see some street art you like… take a photo. You could shoot it with a $5000 large format camera or you could shoot it with your camera phone. It doesn’t matter.  Just get that art and send it in! This should be a lot of fun if we get a ton of people involved.

HOW TO SUBMIT!

Please send your photos to UnseenNYC@trypnotik.com. Please include:

1. Your Twitter handle (if you have one)
2. Your name / web site (if you don’t use twitter)
3. Headline
4. Neighborhood where the picture was taken (if you don’t know what neighborhood, send the cross-streets)
5. Your Photo

If someones face is in the photo, you must have their permission before you send it in.

We do not wish to incriminate our local artists, so please do not ever send information identifying outlaw artists.

You can also submit by posting pictures to our Facebook page or if you take a cell phone picture you can just upload it to Twitter and put the hashtag #UnseenNYC in the Tweet.

So in conclusion: Check out UnseenNYC. Send us pictures. And let’s make an awesome website together representing the secret art of greatest city in the world. And I’ll leave you with a few of my shots…

Well evidently it’s already Sunday and for whatever reason I haven’t really updated in two days and I haven’t really taken any pictures.  Well, that is not actually the case. I have shot a few naked girls and I spent all Saturday taking photos of locations for a shoot I am doing for for a Swiss watch advertisement.  But I have admittedly been slacking a little bit.  Part of that is because I got a new camera and I was waiting for a new lens to arrive, but I got that lens and now it should be time to rock.

Let’s talk about the new camera.  I got a Nikon D700 so I finally have a full frame sensor which means I can take advantage of some better lenses which would be pointless with Nikon’s DX cameras, such as the 17-35 2.8 Wide Zoom lens I just got.  I am pretty excited about that thing although I don’t normally shoot that wide so my party photos might look pretty different from now on.  I got the lens used for about $700 less that it is new and it looks like it’s in pretty good shape other than some cosmetic damage.  Now, I know most of you aren’t camera geeks and you don’t give a shit about any of that.  All this should mean to you guys is that I will probably be using my flash a little left because the D700 with a 2.8fstop can pretty much shoot in the dark and it means that my shots will be a lot wider than you are used to. Also with sharper glass I won’t need to sharpen my images so that might effect the way they look as well. But I guess we will find out in time.  It also means that if you rob me walking home from a club you can pawn my camera for more now than you could have a week ago.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way I gotta plug a few projects that don’t directly have anything to do with me but are project that I sort of worked on and I figure I should promote them.

The first is the debut of the first half of the Ruffeo Hearts Lil Snotty (RHLS) movie called “**** CAN’T WAIT.. (ANY LONGER)”.  If the name sounds weird just wait till you see it.  RHLS is a super weird clothing company and the movie is sort of a video look book for their new line. It’s a stop motion animation featuring music by Das Racist producer LE1F and noise artist Driphouse. It stars Anna Barrie from These Are Powers.  I shot three or four scenes of the 8 part series but they haven’t edited my parts yet so they won’t be in the first half of the video. But you should watch it anyway so when you see my parts it will make sense (it won’t make sense).  Anyway, the video debuts on Monday at 10PM on the World Wide Internet.  For all the details check out this magical Facebook invite.

The second thing I need to plug is a porn film. Classy right?  Well several years ago I met a guy in Las Vegas named Joe Gallant.  We had a mutual friend and we hit it off and I partied with him one night at some crazy fetish party after the AVN Awards.  At the time he was living in NYC and when he needed some people to play paparazzi in a porn film he was making about celebrity vampires he asked me to be in the movie.  The film was called Hell’s Kittens and I am an extra in it for about 2 seconds. You can see the back of my head and my camera and briefly hear my voice.  Pretty exciting. After the scene was over Joe asked me if I wanted to come back and hang out on set where they shot actual porn scenes.  I had never seen a porn being shot so I figured I couldn’t pass this opportunity up. I hung out for one evening of shooting and shot a bunch of behind the scenes shots.  Anyway, the production company that made the film folded before the movie was ever released and the only reason I even got to see it was because Joe hooked me up with a bootleg copy when I ran into him in Vegas last January.  I figured that would be the end of it until Joe emailed me a few days ago to let me know that the film had been released after all under Club Jenna in May.  He asked me to do a little plug for it on my site to get some press as they gear up for awards season.  So yeah, check out my old photos from Hell’s Kittens (NSFW) and read this write up on the release of the film.

Lastly, totally unrelated to anything I just got back some 1600 ISO black and white film that I shot recently. I posted one of the shots today on my Tumblr but I shot a few pictures at parties so I figured I would show you some of what my party pictures would look like if I was shooting nothing but black and white film all the time…

Teddy Blanks was Ross Harman’s bandmate and  best friend.  In 2007 Teddy compiled an album of Ross’ solo work (aka Ballpoint Pens) called Calcutta. When Ross died Teddy went to work immediately putting together Ross’ work into a second album called Symphony. Teddy then took down the website for their band and put up a brand new site that has free downloadable versions of Calcutta and Symphony as well as nearly every Gaskets release. Pretty soon their feature length concert movie Loose Change Live will be available for free download as well. I also have a pretty obsessively organized scrap book of Gaskets flyers, press clippings and photos that I hope to scan and get online as well. Hopefully the site will become a pretty good archive of the history of The Gaskets.

Anyway, you should click here to download Symphony. It features 17 tracks including his song for my brothers film “Cows on a Popemobile” which was used for the credits of a featurette on the Snakes on a Plane DVD.

Here are two sample songs from the album and make sure to check out The Gaskets website for much more free music.

Ballpoint Pens – I Don’t Need Your Symphony:
Ballpoint Pens – I Don’t Need Your Symphony

Ballpoint Pens – My Lord:
Ballpoint Pens – My Lord

PS. For those wondering who I have not talked to, Ross’ funeral was today in Louisiana and was just a small family only affair. We will be celebrating his life on Sunday September 19th at Cous Cous in Richmond, VA. Any of Ross’ friends are invited. Contact me for more details.

The cover story on the Gathering of the Juggalos that I worked on came out in yesterday’s Village Voice. If you live in NYC you should pick one up. It is a pretty amazing adventure tale written by my editor Camille Dodero after we spent four days in the middle of nowhere surrounded by killer clowns. It’s 6000 words so it takes commitment to read it, but it is very enjoyable.  I have been working for VillageVoice.com for two years but this is the first time that I have worked on a big cover story for print like this. Even though I didn’t shoot the actual cover I do have nine pictures in the article which is pretty substantial. Anyway if you don’t live in NYC and can’t pick up a paper you should click here to read the story online.